"...somebody named Cliff Schecter, an expert. Never heard of him."-Rush Limbaugh

Wednesday, March 21, 2007

In this mornings comments on the post about my frustrations, skaterina said about Kim Kagan "Military Historian" on Cspan this morning..

aha / so the Kagan "military historian" i saw on C-span this morningis one of The Famous Kagans / wow

More than wow. A Neocon Echo Chamber Daisy Chain.

Kimberley Kagan* is a Military Historian that often speaks about Iraq.

Her husband is Fredrick Kagan, described as principle author of the surge.

His brother is Robert Kagan, another pro-surge advocate, editor at the Weekly Standard who often writes pro-surge Op-Eds at the Washington Post without disclosing his family ties.

Donald Kagan, who is also a neoconservative intellectual is their father.

I tried getting thru to Cspan this morning about it, but couldn't. My guess is none of the above info was disclosed. Especially the asterisk. (I wasn't paying attention. Her speaking style and speech is awful)

Read Glenn Greenwalds definitive column about this, wherein he is backed up by Andrew Sullivan.

Sounds familiar eh?

Apparently, the Kagan family has locked up a "surge" monopoly:

Fred designed it, they sold it to the President, and the whole family is now held up by our media outlets --

such as The Washington Post and Weekly Standard --

as the experts to whom we should turn in order to learn if the "surge" is or isn't working.

They'll be honest and tell us.

* Kimberly Kagan is listed as one of the participants in her husband's research team that came up with the surge in the first place.

Mrs. Kagan was identified as a neoconservative by a caller on the CSPAN show yesterday. She appeared to be very nervous during the interview--though very loud and determined in voice. Wonder why she was so nervous?? Maybe because her study was full of holes?

When you and your kin are wholly responsible for devising and marketing crucial and controversial US military strategy and policy, it is absolutely imperative for those facts to be disclosed when you are publicly commenting on the effect and implementation of that strategy. Without said disclosure, it is highly likely that your position(s) on these issues be misinterpreted as unbiased when clearly they are not.

I offer a rough analogy. Say you are invited to participate in a professionally run poll about veterans belonging to paper manufacturing unions. You are asked if you or anyone in your family is either a vet, a member of a union, employed in the paper industry or any combination thereof. If you answer yes to any of those questions, you are either excluded from the survey or it is obvious to the pollsters that your responses are influenced by your personal situation.